The France seeks to reassure on its climate ambition

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP 15:31 pm, May 13, 2023

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne stepped up to the plate on Saturday to defend the climate policy of the France, unchanged according to her, despite the turmoil created by Emmanuel Macron's call to stop producing new environmental standards in Europe. "There is no pause at all in the climate ambition" of the France, she assured from Saint-Paul, on the island of Reunion, where she completes a three-day trip.

"Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050"

The head of state spoke twice on the subject on Thursday and Friday when he presented projects for the reindustrialization of the France. He said that environmental standards should no longer be "added" after the application of the European Union's Green Deal, pleading for "stability" so as not to discourage investors. "I prefer factories that meet our European standards that are the best, rather than those that still want to add standards" and take the risk of "no more factories," said the head of state on Friday.

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Emmanuel Macron had just welcomed the creation of thousands of jobs in the electric battery sector in the Dunkirk region, a basin that has suffered over the last 20 years from strong deindustrialization. Like the President, the Prime Minister reaffirmed her support for the European Union's "Green Deal" with "the objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050". "This legislation, it is ambitious, it allows us to meet our objectives, now we must work to implement it and it is already a very important task," she added, hammering that it was not useful to "add standards to standards". The "Green Deal" is the European Union's package of key texts on climate, most of which (reform of the carbon market, end of sales of cars with internal combustion engines, etc.) has been adopted, but some of which are still the subject of difficult negotiations.

Anger of environmentalists

Nevertheless, Emmanuel Macron's statements have caused trouble in Brussels and among environmental activists who fear that a negative political signal will be sent in this way. Some fear a rapprochement of the France with the positions of the European People's Party (EPP, right) which advocates "a moratorium" on certain legislative projects related to pesticides and the restoration of nature. There is no question of a "moratorium", assured people close to Emmanuel Macron, such as MEP Pascal Canfin. But the words of the head of state have triggered the wrath of Europe Ecology the Greens (EE-LV).

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"He wanted to be greener than everyone else on the planetary level, but the reality is that while the entire French population is asking him to go back on his pension reform, he is attacking the environment, and not in a good way," said the leader of the party, Marine Tondelier on franceinfo. Emmanuel Macron has made the reindustrialization of France one of the main axes of the political rebound he is seeking to operate to get out of the painful pension crisis. He will still be in Versailles on Monday to participate in the "Choose France" summit, aimed at demonstrating its economic attractiveness.

The government remains vague on the duration of a possible European pause in the new environmental standards. Rather 5 years than 10 years, advanced Saturday the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure on France Inter. "We are now in a logic where we will discuss with our partners, there will be a common reflection to know how we accelerate action and how, before introducing new standards, we can take a little time to think about it," he explained. Roland Lescure will present Tuesday in the Council of Ministers his bill on green industry, several measures have already been unveiled such as the introduction of a tax credit to support the production of batteries, heat pumps, wind turbines or solar panels. "We want to reconcile the economy and ecology (...) To do this, we must give visibility to industrialists," he said.